The House of Representatives on Wednesday passed a Bill to establish the Chartered Institute of Computer Forensics on Nigeria for third reading after consideration and adoption of reports by the house.

Chairman house committee Science and Technology, Hon. Beni Lar laid the reports and gave synopsis of the Bill.

Titled “A Bill for an Act to Establish the Chartered Institute of Computer Forensics on Nigeria and for other Related Matters (Establishment) Bill, 2021”; it is sponsored by Hon John Dyegh (PDP, Benue).

Dyegh, who represents Gboko/Tarka Federal constituency, said the Bill which has six parts and four schedules has many advantages amongst which seeks a diagnostic analysis of every part of crime and investigation from the crime scene all through prosecution to judicial pronouncement.

Dyegh said the passage of the Institute does not place any financial burden on the Federal Government.

He said with the overwhelming support for the Bill, when passed into law it will help in the detection of all forms of crimes, both electronic crimes i.e (attacks on critical information infrastructure and others as listed in Nigeria Cybercrime Act 2015.

Dyegh said when passed, it will also help in the detection of all terrestrial crimes such as kidnapping, terrorism, armed robbery, burglary by producing undeniable evidence for prosecution.

He said it will also provide electronic evidence in solving all forms of crimes, therefore the job of the Institute will be performed at crime scenes and at digital forensic laboratories.

He said this will go a long way in unraveling the many unresolved crimes perpetrated in Nigeria.

Dyegh said, “The data or information for the digital forensic processes can be extracted from computers, telephones and mobile devices, tablets, various hand-held devices, data storage media, networks, cloud storage, vehicles. Honourable members, it may interest you to know that calls made and the movement of your automobile in the last three months can be retrieved through this technology.

“The passage of this Institute does not place any financial burden on the Federal Government, as the Institute is the first computer forensic institute in Nigeria, having been incorporated since 2008 and gotten approval from both the Federal Ministry of Education and the Federal Ministry of Justice to train and certificate forensic experts in Nigeria amongst whom are from the CBN, EFCC,ICPC, ONSA,NDIC,NPF,NDLEA OAGF, DIA, NIS, NITDA, DSS, NCS, ECOBANK, STANBIC IBTC,DIAMOND, NIMASA, British High Commission, NCC, NCoS, NCS, NHIS, NACMP, DHQ, Federal Ministry of Justice, US embassy e.t.c”

He said members’ current areas of practice and responsibilities on the job include Management of Digital, Mobile and Computer Forensics Laboratories nationwide;

Digital, Mobile and Computer Forensics Extraction, Analysis and Reporting of Electronic Evidence; Detection of all forms of crime, both electronic crimes (including attacks on National Critical Information Infrastructure, and others as listed in Nigeria’s Cybercrimes Act, 2015; and terrestrial crimes (including kidnapping, terrorism, burglary, armed robbery, homicide, etc, and producing electronic evidence to prosecute these crimes; as well as Biometrics and Identity Forensics-fingerprint, etc.

Others, he said, are Vehicle Forensics, which involves using GPS to know movements of the car, communications made using Bluetooth of the car, and condition of the components of the car e.g. at point of an accident; Steganography which involves detecting and investigating hidden and secret documents; Digital Questioned Document Examination which has to do with the detection of fake electronic documents; and Digital Handwriting Analysis for the detection of fake signature and writing.

Others are Drones and aerial craft Forensics for the analysis of the destinations of unmanned aerial vehicles; Cyber intelligence which has to do with Intelligence gathering online; Emerging Technologies (digital) Forensics-Extraction of electronic evidence from new technologies, e.g. Smart TVs, etc; Live Forensics, which has to do with the capture of evidence from memory and systems (live).

He added that other areas included Triage Forensics, which involves stop and search; Network Forensics; Assisting Judges, Prosecutors and Defence Lawyers in forensically extracting, analyzing and reporting electronic evidence in courts; and Assisting Clients to set up new Digital Forensic Laboratories.

Dyegh said the focus is to provide electronic evidence to solve all forms of crimes.